Five Weeks in a Balloon

CHAPTER EIGHTEENTH.

The Karag­wah.–Lake Uk­ere­oue.–A Night on an Is­land.–The Equa­tor.– Cross­ing the Lake.–The Cas­cades.–A View of the Coun­try.–The Sources of the Nile.–The Is­land of Ben­ga.–The Sig­na­ture of An­drea Debono.–The Flag with the Arms of Eng­land.

At five o’clock in the morn­ing, prepa­ra­tions for de­par­ture com­menced. Joe, with the hatch­et which he had for­tu­nate­ly re­cov­ered, broke the ele­phant’s tusks. The bal­loon, re­stored to lib­er­ty, sped away to the north­west with our trav­ellers, at the rate of eigh­teen miles per hour.

The doc­tor had care­ful­ly tak­en his po­si­tion by the al­ti­tude of the stars, dur­ing the pre­ced­ing night. He knew that he was in lat­itude two de­grees forty min­utes be­low the equa­tor, or at a dis­tance of one hun­dred and six­ty ge­ograph­ical miles. He swept along over many vil­lages with­out heed­ing the cries that the ap­pear­ance of the bal­loon ex­cit­ed; he took note of the con­for­ma­tion of places with quick sights; he passed the slopes of the Rube­mhe, which are near­ly as abrupt as the sum­mits of the Ousagara, and, far­ther on, at Ten­ga, en­coun­tered the first pro­jec­tions of the Karag­wah chains, which, in his opin­ion, are di­rect spurs of the Moun­tains of the Moon. So, the an­cient leg­end which made these moun­tains the cra­dle of the Nile, came near to the truth, since they re­al­ly bor­der up­on Lake Uk­ere­oue, the con­jec­tured reser­voir of the wa­ters of the great riv­er.

From Ka­furo, the main dis­trict of the mer­chants of that coun­try, he de­scried, at length, on the hori­zon, the lake so much de­sired and so long sought for, of which Cap­tain Speke caught a glimpse on the 3d of Au­gust, 1858.

Samuel Fer­gu­son felt re­al emo­tion: he was al­most in con­tact with one of the prin­ci­pal points of his ex­pe­di­tion, and, with his spy-​glass con­stant­ly raised, he kept ev­ery nook and cor­ner of the mys­te­ri­ous re­gion in sight. His gaze wan­dered over de­tails that might have been thus de­scribed:

“Be­neath him ex­tend­ed a coun­try gen­er­al­ly des­ti­tute of cul­ti­va­tion; on­ly here and there some ravines seemed un­der tillage; the sur­face, dot­ted with peaks of medi­um height, grew flat as it ap­proached the lake; bar­ley-​fields took the place of rice-​plan­ta­tions, and there, too, could be seen grow­ing the species of plan­tain from which the wine of the coun­try is drawn, and mwani, the wild plant which sup­plies a sub­sti­tute for cof­fee. A col­lec­tion of some fifty or more cir­cu­lar huts, cov­ered with a flow­er­ing thatch, con­sti­tut­ed the cap­ital of the Karag­wah coun­try.”

He could eas­ily dis­tin­guish the as­ton­ished coun­te­nances of a rather fine-​look­ing race of na­tives of yel­low­ish-​brown com­plex­ion. Wom­en of in­cred­ible cor­pu­lence were dawdling about through the cul­ti­vat­ed grounds, and the doc­tor great­ly sur­prised his com­pan­ions by in­form­ing them that this ro­tun­di­ty, which is high­ly es­teemed in that re­gion, was ob­tained by an oblig­atory di­et of cur­dled milk.

At noon, the Vic­to­ria was in one de­gree forty-​five min­utes south lat­itude, and at one o’clock the wind was driv­ing her di­rect­ly to­ward the lake.

This sheet of wa­ter was chris­tened Uyan­za Vic­to­ria, or Vic­to­ria Lake, by Cap­tain Speke. At the place now men­tioned it might mea­sure about nine­ty miles in breadth, and at its south­ern ex­trem­ity the cap­tain found a group of islets, which he named the Archipela­go of Ben­gal. He pushed his sur­vey as far as Muan­za, on the east­ern coast, where he was re­ceived by the sul­tan. He made a tri­an­gu­la­tion of this part of the lake, but he could not pro­cure a boat, ei­ther to cross it or to vis­it the great is­land of Uk­ere­oue which is very pop­ulous, is gov­erned by three sul­tans, and ap­pears to be on­ly a promon­to­ry at low tide.

The bal­loon ap­proached the lake more to the north­ward, to the doc­tor’s great re­gret, for it had been his wish to de­ter­mine its low­er out­lines. Its shores seemed to be thick­ly set with bram­bles and thorny plants, grow­ing to­geth­er in wild con­fu­sion, and were lit­er­al­ly hid­den, some­times, from the gaze, by myr­iads of mosquitoes of a light-​brown hue. The coun­try was ev­ident­ly hab­it­able and in­hab­it­ed. Troops of hip­popota­mi could be seen dis­port­ing them­selves in the forests of reeds, or plung­ing be­neath the whitish wa­ters of the lake.

The lat­ter, seen from above, pre­sent­ed, to­ward the west, so broad an hori­zon that it might have been called a sea; the dis­tance be­tween the two shores is so great that com­mu­ni­ca­tion can­not be es­tab­lished, and storms are fre­quent and vi­olent, for the winds sweep with fury over this el­evat­ed and un­shel­tered basin.

The doc­tor ex­pe­ri­enced some dif­fi­cul­ty in guid­ing his course; he was afraid of be­ing car­ried to­ward the east, but, for­tu­nate­ly, a cur­rent bore him di­rect­ly to­ward the north, and at six o’clock in the evening the bal­loon alight­ed on a small desert is­land in thir­ty min­utes south lat­itude, and thir­ty-​two de­grees fifty-​two min­utes east lon­gi­tude, about twen­ty miles from the shore.

The trav­ellers suc­ceed­ed in mak­ing fast to a tree, and, the wind hav­ing fall­en calm to­ward evening, they re­mained qui­et­ly at an­chor. They dared not dream of tak­ing the ground, since here, as on the shores of the Uyan­za, le­gions of mosquitoes cov­ered the soil in dense clouds. Joe even came back, from se­cur­ing the an­chor in the tree, speck­led with bites, but he kept his tem­per, be­cause he found it quite the nat­ural thing for mosquitoes to treat him as they had done.

Nev­er­the­less, the doc­tor, who was less of an op­ti­mist, let out as much rope as he could, so as to es­cape these piti­less in­sects, that be­gan to rise to­ward him with a threat­en­ing hum.

The doc­tor as­cer­tained the height of the lake above the lev­el of the sea, as it had been de­ter­mined by Cap­tain Speke, say three thou­sand sev­en hun­dred and fifty feet.

“Here we are, then, on an is­land!” said Joe, scratch­ing as though he’d tear his nails out.

“We could make the tour of it in a jiffy,” added Kennedy, “and, ex­cept­ing these con­found­ed mosquitoes, there’s not a liv­ing be­ing to be seen on it.”

“The is­lands with which the lake is dot­ted,” replied the doc­tor, “are noth­ing, af­ter all, but the tops of sub­merged hills; but we are lucky to have found a re­treat among them, for the shores of the lake are in­hab­it­ed by fe­ro­cious tribes. Take your sleep, then, since Prov­idence has grant­ed us a tran­quil night.”

“Won’t you do the same, doc­tor?”

“No, I could not close my eyes. My thoughts would ban­ish sleep. To-​mor­row, my friends, should the wind prove fa­vor­able, we shall go due north, and we shall, per­haps, dis­cov­er the sources of the Nile, that grand se­cret which has so long re­mained im­pen­etra­ble. Near as we are to the sources of the renowned riv­er, I could not sleep.”

Kennedy and Joe, whom sci­en­tif­ic spec­ula­tions failed to dis­turb to that ex­tent, were not long in falling in­to sound slum­ber, while the doc­tor held his post.

On Wednes­day, April 23d, the bal­loon start­ed at four o’clock in the morn­ing, with a gray­ish sky over­head; night was slow in quit­ting the sur­face of the lake, which was en­veloped in a dense fog, but present­ly a vi­olent breeze scat­tered all the mists, and, af­ter the bal­loon had been swung to and fro for a mo­ment, in op­po­site di­rec­tions, it at length veered in a straight line to­ward the north.

Dr. Fer­gu­son fair­ly clapped his hands for joy.

“We are on the right track!” he ex­claimed. “To-​day or nev­er we shall see the Nile! Look, my friends, we are cross­ing the equa­tor! We are en­ter­ing our own hemi­sphere!”

“Ah!” said Joe, “do you think, doc­tor, that the equa­tor pass­es here?”

“Just here, my boy!”

“Well, then, with all re­spect to you, sir, it seems to me that this is the very time to moist­en it.”

“Good!” said the doc­tor, laugh­ing. “Let us have a glass of punch. You have a way of com­pre­hend­ing cos­mog­ra­phy that is any thing but dull.”

And thus was the pas­sage of the Vic­to­ria over the equa­tor du­ly cel­ebrat­ed.

The bal­loon made rapid head­way. In the west could be seen a low and but slight­ly-​di­ver­si­fied coast, and, far­ther away in the back­ground, the el­evat­ed plains of the Ugan­da and the Uso­ga. At length, the ra­pid­ity of the wind be­came ex­ces­sive, ap­proach­ing thir­ty miles per hour.

The wa­ters of the Nyan­za, vi­olent­ly ag­itat­ed, were foam­ing like the bil­lows of a sea. By the ap­pear­ance of cer­tain long swells that fol­lowed the sink­ing of the waves, the doc­tor was en­abled to con­clude that the lake must have great depth of wa­ter. On­ly one or two rude boats were seen dur­ing this rapid pas­sage.

“This lake is ev­ident­ly, from its el­evat­ed po­si­tion, the nat­ural reser­voir of the rivers in the east­ern part of Africa, and the sky gives back to it in rain what it takes in va­por from the streams that flow out of it. I am cer­tain that the Nile must here take its rise.”

“Well, we shall see!” said Kennedy.

About nine o’clock they drew near­er to the west­ern coast. It seemed de­sert­ed, and cov­ered with woods; the wind fresh­ened a lit­tle to­ward the east, and the oth­er shore of the lake could be seen. It bent around in such a curve as to end in a wide an­gle to­ward two de­grees forty min­utes north lat­itude. Lofty moun­tains up­lift­ed their arid peaks at this ex­trem­ity of Nyan­za; but, be­tween them, a deep and wind­ing gorge gave ex­it to a tur­bu­lent and foam­ing riv­er.

While busy man­ag­ing the bal­loon, Dr. Fer­gu­son nev­er ceased re­con­noitring the coun­try with ea­ger eyes.

“Look!” he ex­claimed, “look, my friends! the state­ments of the Arabs were cor­rect! They spoke of a riv­er by which Lake Uk­ere­oue dis­charged its wa­ters to­ward the north, and this riv­er ex­ists, and we are de­scend­ing it, and it flows with a speed anal­ogous to our own! And this drop of wa­ter now glid­ing away be­neath our feet is, be­yond all ques­tion, rush­ing on, to min­gle with the Mediter­ranean! It is the Nile!”

“It is the Nile!” reee­choed Kennedy, car­ried away by the en­thu­si­asm of his friend.

“Hur­rah for the Nile!” shout­ed Joe, glad, and al­ways ready to cheer for some­thing.

Enor­mous rocks, here and there, em­bar­rassed the course of this mys­te­ri­ous riv­er. The wa­ter foamed as it fell in rapids and cataracts, which con­firmed the doc­tor in his pre­con­ceived ideas on the sub­ject. From the en­vi­ron­ing moun­tains nu­mer­ous tor­rents came plung­ing and seething down, and the eye could take them in by hun­dreds. There could be seen, start­ing from the soil, del­icate jets of wa­ter scat­ter­ing in all di­rec­tions, cross­ing and re­cross­ing each oth­er, min­gling, con­tend­ing in the swift­ness of their progress, and all rush­ing to­ward that nascent stream which be­came a riv­er af­ter hav­ing drunk them in.

“Here is, in­deed, the Nile!” re­it­er­at­ed the doc­tor, with the tone of pro­found con­vic­tion. “The ori­gin of its name, like the ori­gin of its wa­ters, has fired the imag­ina­tion of the learned; they have sought to trace it from the Greek, the Cop­tic, the San­scrit; but all that mat­ters lit­tle now, since we have made it sur­ren­der the se­cret of its source!”

“But,” said the Scotch­man, “how are you to make sure of the iden­ti­ty of this riv­er with the one rec­og­nized by the trav­ellers from the north?”

“We shall have cer­tain, ir­refutable, con­vinc­ing, and in­fal­li­ble proof,” replied Fer­gu­son, “should the wind hold an­oth­er hour in our fa­vor!”

The moun­tains drew far­ther apart, re­veal­ing in their place nu­mer­ous vil­lages, and fields of white In­di­an corn, doura, and sug­ar-​cane. The tribes in­hab­it­ing the re­gion seemed ex­cit­ed and hos­tile; they man­ifest­ed more anger than ado­ra­tion, and ev­ident­ly saw in the aero­nauts on­ly ob­tru­sive strangers, and not con­de­scend­ing deities. It ap­peared as though, in ap­proach­ing the sources of the Nile, these men came to rob them of some­thing, and so the Vic­to­ria had to keep out of range of their mus­kets.

“To land here would be a tick­lish mat­ter!” said the Scot.

“Well!” said Joe, “so much the worse for these na­tives. They’ll have to do with­out the plea­sure of our con­ver­sa­tion.”

“Nev­er­the­less, de­scend I must,” said the doc­tor, “were it on­ly for a quar­ter of an hour. With­out do­ing so I can­not ver­ify the re­sults of our ex­pe­di­tion.”

“It is in­dis­pens­able, then, doc­tor?”

“In­dis­pens­able; and we will de­scend, even if we have to do so with a vol­ley of mus­ketry.”

“The thing suits me,” said Kennedy, toy­ing with his pet ri­fle.

“And I’m ready, mas­ter, when­ev­er you say the word!” added Joe, prepar­ing for the fight.

“It would not be the first time,” re­marked the doc­tor, “that sci­ence has been fol­lowed up, sword in hand. The same thing hap­pened to a French sa­vant among the moun­tains of Spain, when he was mea­sur­ing the ter­res­tri­al merid­ian.”

“Be easy on that score, doc­tor, and trust to your two body-​guards.”

“Are we there, mas­ter?”

“Not yet. In fact, I shall go up a lit­tle, first, in or­der to get an ex­act idea of the con­fig­ura­tion of the coun­try.”

The hy­dro­gen ex­pand­ed, and in less than ten min­utes the bal­loon was soar­ing at a height of twen­ty-​five hun­dred feet above the ground.

From that el­eva­tion could be dis­tin­guished an in­ex­tri­ca­ble net­work of small­er streams which the riv­er re­ceived in­to its bo­som; oth­ers came from the west, from be­tween nu­mer­ous hills, in the midst of fer­tile plains.

“We are not nine­ty miles from Gon­do­ko­ro,” said the doc­tor, mea­sur­ing off the dis­tance on his map, “and less than five miles from the point reached by the ex­plor­ers from the north. Let us de­scend with great care.”

And, up­on this, the bal­loon was low­ered about two thou­sand feet.

“Now, my friends, let us be ready, come what may.”

“Ready it is!” said Dick and Joe, with one voice.

“Good!”

In a few mo­ments the bal­loon was ad­vanc­ing along the bed of the riv­er, and scarce­ly one hun­dred feet above the ground. The Nile mea­sured but fifty fath­oms in width at this point, and the na­tives were in great ex­cite­ment, rush­ing to and fro, tu­mul­tuous­ly, in the vil­lages that lined the banks of the stream. At the sec­ond de­gree it forms a per­pen­dic­ular cas­cade of ten feet in height, and con­se­quent­ly im­pass­able by boats.

“Here, then, is the cas­cade men­tioned by Debono!” ex­claimed the doc­tor.

The basin of the riv­er spread out, dot­ted with nu­mer­ous is­lands, which Dr. Fer­gu­son de­voured with his eyes. He seemed to be seek­ing for a point of ref­er­ence which he had not yet found.

By this time, some blacks, hav­ing ven­tured in a boat just un­der the bal­loon, Kennedy salut­ed them with a shot from his ri­fle, that made them re­gain the bank at their ut­most speed.

“A good jour­ney to you,” bawled Joe, “and if I were in your place, I wouldn’t try com­ing back again. I should be might­ily afraid of a mon­ster that can hurl thun­der­bolts when he pleas­es.”

But, all at once, the doc­tor snatched up his spy-​glass, and di­rect­ed it to­ward an is­land repos­ing in the mid­dle of the riv­er.

“Four trees!” he ex­claimed; “look, down there!” Sure enough, there were four trees stand­ing alone at one end of it.

“It is Ben­gal Is­land! It is the very same,” re­peat­ed the doc­tor, ex­ult­ing­ly.

“And what of that?” asked Dick.

“It is there that we shall alight, if God per­mits.”

“But, it seems to be in­hab­it­ed, doc­tor.”

“Joe is right; and, un­less I’m mis­tak­en, there is a group of about a score of na­tives on it now.”

“We’ll make them scat­ter; there’ll be no great trou­ble in that,” re­spond­ed Fer­gu­son.

“So be it,” chimed in the hunter.

The sun was at the zenith as the bal­loon ap­proached the is­land.

The blacks, who were mem­bers of the Maka­do tribe, were howl­ing lusti­ly, and one of them waved his bark hat in the air. Kennedy took aim at him, fired, and his hat flew about him in pieces. There­upon there was a gen­er­al scam­per. The na­tives plunged head­long in­to the riv­er, and swam to the op­po­site bank. Im­me­di­ate­ly, there came a show­er of balls from both banks, along with a per­fect cloud of ar­rows, but with­out do­ing the bal­loon any dam­age, where it rest­ed with its an­chor snug­ly se­cured in the fis­sure of a rock. Joe lost no time in slid­ing to the ground.

“The lad­der!” cried the doc­tor. “Fol­low me, Kennedy.”

“What do you wish, sir?”

“Let us alight. I want a wit­ness.”

“Here I am!”

“Mind your post, Joe, and keep a good look­out.”

“Nev­er fear, doc­tor; I’ll an­swer for all that.”

“Come, Dick,” said the doc­tor, as he touched the ground.

So say­ing, he drew his com­pan­ion along to­ward a group of rocks that rose up­on one point of the is­land; there, af­ter search­ing for some time, he be­gan to rum­mage among the bram­bles, and, in so do­ing, scratched his hands un­til they bled.

Sud­den­ly he grasped Kennedy’s arm, ex­claim­ing: “Look! look!”

“Let­ters!”

Yes; there, in­deed, could be de­scried, with per­fect pre­ci­sion of out­line, some let­ters carved on the rock. It was quite easy to make them out:

“A. D.”

“A.D.!” re­peat­ed Dr. Fer­gu­son. “An­drea Debono– the very sig­na­ture of the trav­eller who far­thest as­cend­ed the cur­rent of the Nile.”

“No doubt of that, friend Samuel,” as­sent­ed Kennedy.

“Are you now con­vinced?”

“It is the Nile! We can­not en­ter­tain a doubt on that score now,” was the re­ply.

The doc­tor, for the last time, ex­am­ined those pre­cious ini­tials, the ex­act form and size of which he care­ful­ly not­ed.

“And now,” said he–“now for the bal­loon!”

“Quick­ly, then, for I see some of the na­tives get­ting ready to re­cross the riv­er.”

“That mat­ters lit­tle to us now. Let the wind but send us north­ward for a few hours, and we shall reach Gon­do­ko­ro, and press the hands of some of our coun­try­men.”

Ten min­utes more, and the bal­loon was ma­jes­ti­cal­ly as­cend­ing, while Dr. Fer­gu­son, in to­ken of suc­cess, waved the En­glish flag tri­umphant­ly from his car.